Austin Shangraw

On March 7, 2014, a New Kingston, Jamaica court handed down an unusual two-part ruling in a case involving a group of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth. The judge convicted the LGBT youth of breaking the country’s “bad…

In January 2014, the World Bank’s Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) released a report criticizing the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) loan agreement with a Honduran corporation implicated in human rights violations in the country’s Bajo Aguán Valley. The CAO found that…

On March 12, the United States Institute of Peace, along with Oxfam America, marked the third anniversary of the Syrian conflict by hosting “Syria’s Humanitarian Crisis and the International Response.” The event featured a keynote address by UN High Commissioner…

Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net 2013 report ranked Cuba fifty-ninth out of a sixty-country sample for its Internet freedom, falling below China and topping only Iran. The report, which examined Internet access based upon factors such as access, limits…

In September, California’s legislature passed a bill (AB 10) increasing the state’s minimum wage to the highest in the country. Under the new law, the state’s minimum wage will be incrementally increased to $10 per hour by January 2016. The…